Most of the current weather forecast information used by individuals and businesses is obtained by them from weather reports provided by local television and radio stations. Such reports are typically prepared by meteorologists at a television or radio station serving a particular geographical area, e.g., a large city and surrounding environs. The reports are based on current weather information available to the meteorologists, which may be provided by various local (e.g., local radar) and national (e.g., NEXRAD radar and weather satellite) weather information sources. A meteorologist may also employ computer implemented weather forecasting models in preparing a weather forecast report. A meteorologist may prepare and/or update such reports throughout the day, and such reports may be provided as part of periodic radio and/or television broadcasts. A person who is interested in the current or forecast weather conditions for a geographic location accesses such a weather report by tuning in to the television or radio broadcast of the report at the designated time.
If severe weather threatens a particular area, an emergency radio or television broadcast may be made to provide such information to the public immediately and, if necessary, continuously. For example, a television station may provide a graphic indication of the general location (e.g., county) and nature of severe weather (e.g., tornado and thunderstorm warnings, etc.) as part of its television broadcast, throughout the period during which severe weather threatens an area. Such severe weather or storm warnings may be generated from various different weather information sources and provided in various different manners to the public. For example, a television station may subscribe to National Weather Service weather wire information, which includes weather warning bulletins authored by the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, and other related government agencies. The weather warning bulletins include tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, flash flood warnings, and the like.
NEXRAD weather radar weather information is also obtained from the government by many television stations. NEXRAD information includes a storm attributes table which defines storm cells and provides detailed information concerning the cells, including the characteristics of the cells (e.g., hail and vortex intensity and location, rain fall intensity, speed, etc.) as well as the position, direction, and speed of movement of the cells. A storm cell tracking and display system employed by the television station may use such NEXRAD data to determine the position of a storm and to derive a predicted storm path therefrom. Such a derived storm track may be displayed to viewers, e.g., as part of a severe weather update television report. Such a report may include a display indicating the time that a selected storm or storms is predicted to arrive at a particular city or town, based on the storm track derived from NEXRAD storm attribute information.
Government-provided NEXRAD radar data includes detailed information on storm cells, including detailed information on the characteristics of the cells, including their speed and direction of movement, contents (e.g., hail or tornadoes), etc. This detailed information is obtained by the NEXRAD radar system by performing a volumetric radar scan of the atmosphere. A weather tracking and display system can expect to receive updated NEXRAD weather information no more often than every six (6) minutes. The speed and direction of movement of a severe weather cell can change significantly during this relatively long period between NEXRAD updates. Thus, storm warnings based on the predicted track of a storm cell will become increasingly inaccurate between NEXRAD updates, if NEXRAD information alone is relied upon to determine the predicted track of a storm cell. Local or remote live radar systems perform a much more rapid scan of the atmosphere, and are, therefore, able to provide more up-to-the-minute information on the current location of a severe storm weather cell. Since such live radar systems are significantly less expensive than NEXRAD radar systems, many television news and weather operations have their own live local radar systems, in addition to access to government provided NEXRAD data, which provides much more detailed storm attribute information.
A limitation of conventional weather reports and storm warnings is that they are generalized over a relatively large geographic area. For example, a typical storm warning may indicate that severe weather, e.g., a tornado, thunderstorm, etc., is present or expected to arrive in a geographic area such as a county. Of course, such severe weather will arrive at different locations in the county at different times, and some areas of a county under a weather warning may not receive any severe weather at all. Since many storm systems (especially tornadoes) are highly localized, they might strike one side of the street while leaving the other untouched. A county-wide storm warning, therefore, does not provide sufficient information for an individual to know whether or when to expect severe weather at his home, place of work, or other specific location of interest within the county.
Televised weather reports which provide expected arrival times of severe weather at specific cities or other populated areas are also of limited value for many individuals. Such reports, which may employ NEXRAD information or NEXRAD information in combination with live radar information to provide accurate storm cell tracking, typically only provide arrival time information for a handful of populated areas in the path of a storm. Those in rural areas and smaller towns in the path of a storm must attempt to estimate on their own, from the graphics provided in the televised weather warning broadcast, if severe weather will reach their area and, if so, when. Still further, in many cases a power outage may cause TV and radio signals to go dark (either at the station or at the individual's location) so these warnings may not be available.
What is desired, therefore, is a system and method which provides localized storm or other severe weather warnings to individuals or businesses which indicate whether or not a storm will reach an individual's location of interest and, if so, when.